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lol, they have two mines that are mostly copper - though assuming they put out a decent supply, there are definitely more Uranium miners and refiners not affiliated with the oil industry than there are that are.

I don't know much about the geologic distribution of uranium. How significant is it to have the largest vein in the world? It could just be like having the biggest swimming pool on the block - makes for nice bragging rights, but proportionally, not that much more water than anybody else with a pool.

No, no.
Corporations are always evil, poor working class people are always good.
I mean, I can't believe I have to explain a physicist of all people this.
Maybe when you're as smart as a liberal atheist redditor, you'll understand literally everything there is to life.

Corporations are always evil, poor working class people are always good.

The working class has proportionally the highest amount of assholes who in the blink of an eye would become a huge corporation owner, the very thing the most of them despise and hate every day, given the chance. That's the American (or capitalist) dream though, isn't it?

If you're poor you struggle in a sea of shit and set an example for the working class. The working class is scared to end up like the poor and strive to be like the upper class, who they also hate. Our society isn't fucked up because of the upper class. It's fucked up because everyone wants to be the upper class and is willing to shit down on everyone who hinders it.

Corporations are there because the working class likes it that way. The poor working class has a sparkle of hope in being like the corporate big-shots if the corporations are there.

Capitalism is a communal pathological condition, not a repressive system. Liberal or conservative, you're still a part of the problem.

The pathological condition predates capitalism and all other forms of economic system. Humans are just greedy in general and given the chance, almost any person on Earth will consume more resources to make their (and their family's) lives more safe, fun, comfortable, enjoyable etc.

The genius of capitalism is that takes that pathology and, through regulated market competition, focuses it toward innovation and productivity.

Thank you. I hate trying to engage with people who think it's some mass conspiracy holding back new forms of energy. It really just isn't feasible to use giant turbines and solar panels everywhere. Oddly enough though, my physics professors have perm chubs for nuclear energy.

Because nuclear energy is fairly clean (mcuh cleaner than it used to be), incredibly cheap per MWh, and has far, far fewer deaths per unit of energy than almost any other form of energy. People are afraid of 40 year old technology, but to be fair, cars from 40 years ago are also fairly scary in how few safety features they have.

I have but one problem with nuclear energy: nuclear waste. Current technology cannot stabilize the unstable nuclear isotopes used in nuclear fission. All we can do is bury them in holes and wait for them to stabilize themselves. And there's still large amounts from older reactors that needs to be cleaned up. How will new technology reduce or eliminate this problem, and if it won't, why should we be producing more waste when we could be putting the money for fission reactors towards improving other renewable energy technologies, such as fusion and (improved) solar power? Or technologies to stabilize unstable isotopes, which is being researched at CERN but at a snail's pace.

Nuclear energy production uses unstable elements not because it's necessary, but because it's the easiest way it can be done. Uranium and plutonium are dangerous and non-renewable. They have to be mined and refined, sometimes exposing workers to dangerous radiation. And when you're done using it, there's still large amounts of radioactive by-products that need to be disposed somewhere where they can't pollute the land, and disposal methods for nuclear waste are severely lacking.

Because we can't stabilize these elements, we need to prepare secure disposal sites that need to last for thousands of years, longer than any civilization has lasted. There have even been proposals of large monuments warning future civilizations that there is nuclear waste buried at this site, stone monoliths written in multitudes of languages and pictographs, surrounded by barren structures covered in spikes to keep explorers from thinking there is treasure buried there. This waste, if uncovered, would kill anyone who did not expect and prepare for it. Egyptian tombs warned of curses, and these disposal sites would mimic such warnings, only they would be true.

I cannot support nuclear fission unless we can address these problems. We need to clean up after the old reactors, and create new reactor technologies that reduce or even eliminate the amounts of radioactive material used and produced by them. If this can't be done, then we need to look to other energy technologies, renewable and clean technologies. The dangers of radiation are clear and present, and we can't just hope nothing goes wrong. Reactors using radioactive materials need to be secure and safe.

Nuclear is still the superior option. Coal plants actually produce more radioactive debris in the area than a nuclear plant. It's thrown into the air and passed into whatever environment it happens to encounter.

At least with nuclear, we have all the waste, in one place, and we can store it away. Is that not better?

There is no reason to throw the waste from coal plants into the air, there are many types of filters that can be put onto the exhaust of coal plants.

I do not support coal, it is dirty and non-renewable, and it is a more active pollutant than nuclear energy. But I don't support the current methods of nuclear fission either, because it is non-renewable and the process of mining and refining uranium and plutonium are not clean.

There is a type of nuclear fission power that has a 100 year half life, thorium floride reactors. Produces about the same energy of a typical uranium reactor, but much safer. It could be implemented in most reactors quickly, and safely. Nuclear power is the best bet we have, and actually one of the safest if you look statistically. If we use thorium floride reactors, it will be one of the safest, if not the safest form of power out there.

That one's just cause there's some really promising stuff that was put aside so we could use Uranium nuclear plants instead back during the cold war (for use of depleted U and Plutonium in weapons). Now though everyone is terrified of nuclear accidents (unfairly so I feel) so none of said new promising stuff is going to get funding.

Nuclear energy is the most efficient way of generating power that we know of right now. Look at nuclear powered ships as just a small example. A Nimitz class Aircraft carrier can run for 20 without refueling, the sailors are the actual limitation. While the actual amount is highly classified, I have heard from more than one scientist that this is all accomplished from an amount of fuel that can "fit under a desk." Even if it's a huge desk, that is still highly efficient.

The biggest problem for solar companies right now is that prices for solar modules have dropped so much it is difficult to make money manufacturing cells or modules. This is a pretty good problem to have for the industry as a whole; companies that install solar power are having a field day in comparison to there 1990's business.

But solar energy is only going to get cheaper, while fossil fuels will only trend up. Solar energy will reach parity and eventually usurp fossil fuels. It is not a matter of if, but when.

solar thermal power isn't feasible. Photovoltaics (solar panels) are. Its not that difficult to set up a solar panel system to power your house really. It can be done for a couple thousand dollars and is a good investment

Btw, Chemical Engineer here so photovoltaics fall right into my field of study

The big problem with solar and a lot of other renewable energy sources is that they are intermittent. Coal might be dirty and nuclear might be dangerous but they provide continuous power in large quantities. They don't require 1000s acres of space either. Can't say the same for solar and wind. So it's much bigger than "the Man" holding us back. We haven't come up with adequate alternatives to coal, oil, and nuclear.

This is similar to why wind power has so much trouble gaining a larger share of generation. Beyond the physical constraints, for every Kilowatt Hour of generation produced by wind energy or solar energy, you need a Kilowatt hour of reserve generation capacity (Because if your wind stops or it is a cloudy day, the utility can't just shut off the power). There is a reason hydroelectric dams were built in the thirties and forties, yet renewable energy like wind and solar are still struggling.

Any mechanical engineer who is worth his degree can tell you there is a large interest in the field of renewable energy. It is simply a field with many constraints. An energy source that is inconsistent and hard to control, a need for reserve generation, a high investment, limited locales, not to mention many physical constraints such as solar panel durability, turbine maintenance, etc.

To recoup losses from investing in clean energy sources, large utilities (who face a lot of anger and blame, example: Californian rolling blackouts) bank on the idea that people with pay more for a "cleaner kilowatt." American's simply don't respond to this like they should. It seems Americans want clean energy but aren't willing to pay for it, so many clean companies flounder.

My father is an engineer (and I am in my 3rd year at Uni studying Mechanical engineering) who for Luminant Generation, often dealing with ERCOT (The Texas Electric Grid Regulator). He has so many stories of good intentions gone wrong it isn't funny.

He was helping build a coal plant (one of nine TXU planned, and one of two that actually got built prior to the take over by Energy Future Holdings suspended the plans for greater generation.) For a significant period of time you could find in the Dallas Morning News full page adds with pictures of coal miners covered in sooty and the words "Coal is dirty." At the bottom in fine print you would find "Paid for by the National Gas Corporations of America."

There was a rally with anti-coal advocates. SUVs filled parking lots so people could protest. My dad rode the bus. There was even a celebrity (I do not recall whom) who flew in from California to protest the coal plant. Dad did not say anything, since people don't like confronting their hypocrisy. That coal plant created many new jobs for a small Texas town, and if the cars that came to the rally hadn't been driven, could have provided power for two months and still have a smaller footprint.

In a particularly cold Texas winter (Don't laugh, we aren't used to it), energy prices went up accordingly and spare generation capacity got tighter. His company was sued by a small resaler (smaller corporations who have little or no generation, but rather buy energy at bulk rates and resell it to consumers, like your typical middleman) when TXU stopped putting their spare generation on the market (the suit made the claim that TXU was trying to run this small competitor out of business). Needless to say, it was cheaper to settle (if I recall. Dad isn't big about talking about business when at home. All I know I learned from prying).

These are just a few off the top of my head.

tl;dr : Solar and wind have a lot of physical and economic constraints. Americans want clean but don't want to pay for clean. Some stories my dad has told me from inside the Electricity Generation Industry (Luminant).

Solar power is nearly at cost parity with fossil fuel generated power (source). If the government provides any incentives for installing solar cells in your area, it may already be at cost parity. If not, it is expected to be within the next 5 years.

There are many reasons for this, regarding changes over the last few decades.

1) Decline of silicon cost (aside from a recent bump, as you'll see in the above source).

2) More efficient manufacturing of cells.

3) Increase of optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency.

4) Rising cost of fossil fuels.

5) If the solar cells are installed at your home, there are obviously no distribution or transmission fees.

5) Often municipalities have programs in place allowing you to "sell" excess electricity back to the grid. (see an example here).

Efficiency

The upper limit of solar cell efficiency (known as the Shockley-Queisser limit) is 33.7%. This is with a 1.1 eV single-junction solar cell (silicon is very near this) and without any concentration of sunlight. Under maximum concentration, the upper limit is 41%.

Here is a chart showing the best research-cell efficiencies. If we're talking about conventional, commercial solar cell efficiencies (thick, monocrystalline silicon), the efficiency typically ranges from 18 to 24% (source).

Surpassing the Upper Efficiency Limit

There are some ways of surpassing the Shockley-Queisser limit. You can read some here. One that I find very interesting, which is actually the subject of my current research (I am an Engineering Physicist) is Thermophotovoltaics.

In TPV systems, you concentrate sunlight onto a emitter, which is then heated by the sunlight, and in turn emits onto your photovoltaic cell to be converted to electricity. It may seem unintuitive that a two-step process could be more efficient, but here's how: The emitter is nano-engineered so that its emission is matched to the absorption of your photovoltaic cell. This greatly enhances efficiency.

In a typical solar cell, much of the sunlight is wasted because it is either below the bandgap, or far above it. TPV systems are recently demonstrating very high efficiencies in simulations, and there are a few commercialproducts as well.

Another really cool thing about TPV is that they're very versatile; you could heat the emitter using sunlight (and surpass the SQ limit, as explained), industrial waste heat, nuclear reactions, or combustion sources.

First of all oil is seldom used for power generation. Secondly none of the big oil players have a large presence in the mining space especially with regards to coal and uranium. Finally, solar isn't feasible because the bid for power especially to compensate for peak load is dictated on marginal costs of natural gas producers which fall dramatically under marginal costs for solar. Take a look at the amount of PV companies that have gone bankrupt recently or just take a look at FSLR's financial performance over the past 2 years.

That doesn't mean the technology isn't still in development and big oil companies are right up there in the R&D because they recognize that sustainable energy development is inevitable.

It's really just a matter of the conversion rate of the solar panels. If they can breakthrough the hypothetical maximum conversion percent, then all bets are off. But right now, they're only seeing, at most, around 18% conversion.

I was reading that utilizing nano-tubes they may be able to double the conversion percent, which would be a huge revolution.

Not true, a simplistic and incorrect picture. If you develop a more efficient (energywise) PV technique it is likely to be more expensive, producing a cheaper even if less efficient PV cell is more likely to improve the cost of solar energy.

It is also impossible to achieve the maximum conversion of light to electricity anyway, that is an absolute ceiling since a practical ceiling is far too difficult to estimate without knowing the tech that will be used, it is more likely to be around the 50% region.

It's also production cost and maintainability. Dye-sensitized solar cells look awesome and are cheap to make, but their efficiency is crap right now. I think they're our best hope, once their efficiency gets more in line with traditional solar cells.

Solar power is nearly at cost parity with fossil fuel generated power (source). If the government provides any incentives for installing solar cells in your area, it may already be at cost parity. If not, it is expected to be within the next 5 years.

There are many reasons for this, regarding changes over the last few decades.

1) Decline of silicon cost (aside from a recent bump, as you'll see in the above source).

2) More efficient manufacturing of cells.

3) Increase of optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency.

4) Rising cost of fossil fuels.

5) If the solar cells are installed at your home, there are obviously no distribution or transmission fees.

5) Often municipalities have programs in place allowing you to "sell" excess electricity back to the grid. (see an example here).

Efficiency

The upper limit of solar cell efficiency (known as the Shockley-Queisser limit) is 33.7%. This is with a 1.1 eV single-junction solar cell (silicon is very near this) and without any concentration of sunlight. Under maximum concentration, the upper limit is 41%.

Here is a chart showing the best research-cell efficiencies. If we're talking about conventional, commercial solar cell efficiencies (thick, monocrystalline silicon), the efficiency typically ranges from 18 to 24% (source).

Surpassing the Upper Efficiency Limit

There are some ways of surpassing the Shockley-Queisser limit. You can read some here. One that I find very interesting, which is actually the subject of my current research (I am an Engineering Physicist) is Thermophotovoltaics.

In TPV systems, you concentrate sunlight onto a emitter, which is then heated by the sunlight, and in turn emits onto your photovoltaic cell to be converted to electricity. It may seem unintuitive that a two-step process could be more efficient, but here's how: The emitter is nano-engineered so that its emission is matched to the absorption of your photovoltaic cell. This greatly enhances efficiency.

In a typical solar cell, much of the sunlight is wasted because it is either below the bandgap, or far above it. TPV systems are recently demonstrating very high efficiencies in simulations, and there are a few commercialproducts as well.

Another really cool thing about TPV is that they're very versatile; you could heat the emitter using sunlight (and surpass the SQ limit, as explained), industrial waste heat, nuclear reactions, or combustion sources.

It will be eventually. It's only a matter of how hard we try to get there and how quickly. The amount of solar power that hits even small, isolated parts of our planet can be enough to power all of civilization without anybody even having to mention the word "conservation".

The energy is here, it's going to continue to be here. The only thing in our way are technological hurdles. Hurdles that I don't see why anybody should say "these are insurmountable problems that can never ever be overcome through technological and scientific advances"

But I don't know... maybe virtually limitless, renewable, and completely clean energy for all of civilization isn't worth pursuing vigorously than we currently are.

You mean subsidies as in oil subsidies? Only done with the purpose they were intended for, to help boost new forms of energy instead of propping up the richest business in the world. You mean subsidies to help build the future rather than support the status quo?

I'm not sure you're aware, but the oil and gas industry is FAR more subsidized than the solar industry. EDIT: (As per below, this may not be accurate)

Also, the idea behind renewable energy is to use it in combination. I've seen plenty of solar/wind combinations that are positive return.

When you hear people tout economically feasible, that's referring to the financial cost of buying the electricity from a solar plant compared to say a coal plant. Those costs don't take into account a lot of other non monetary costs.

I could go on forever, but it's just rambling. Yabajaba jenga bo himbanatap tap.

According to the liberal watchdog group, Media Matters,[2] since 1996, $110,000 of IER's funding has come from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, a trust set up by private energy company Koch Industries. IER also received over $300,000 in funding from ExxonMobil, [3], but Exxon has not given to IER since 2007.[4]

I'm sure Exxon and the Koch Brothers have no interest in bashing the solar industry, right?

The second one is practically meaningless. It could be that it's more subsidized by megawatt because it's less subsidized, and therefore doesn't have the economy of scale.

The first one seems to show that both fossil fuels and renewables are heavily subsidized, but that renewable energy source subsidies have only recently been increased above fossil fuels. If true, this would not be strange if we are trying to transition to renewable energy.

Actually there is only one subsidy that the oil industry enjoys that is not uniformly offered to almost every other industry in the country. The would be writing off their intangible drilling costs, which is actually the smallest subsidy in $$$ available to them. The oil industry makes for a convenient scapegoat because it is an industry that makes a lot of money (albeit at a lower profit margin than many other industries), it effects almost everyone's life, we see it every day, and oil tycoons are easy to portray as villains. What uninformed person doesn't automatically think of JR Ewing when someone brings up the evil oil industry?

Solar power will be cheaper than fossil fuels sooner rather than later. For 50 years the price of solar has been dropping an average of 7 percent a year. As it gets closer to equity with fossil fuels, research and development has skyrocketed.

The price of solar power has dropped 10% so far this year, and dropped 50% last year alone.

Yet our grid is extremely efficient, so putting solar power in those "few places" is something that should be done. Not to mention China has recently gotten into the solar panel sector and flooded the market, effectively dropping prices.

It's not really a good point. The argument has been long running that solar power isn't economically feasable, but as they continue to upgrade the technology, like any other technology, it becomes more and more economically feasable. The manufacturing costs have been slashed over the years, and the technology has been made more efficient.

Also, putting the label of "not economically feasable" on solar power is broad and doesn't actually address HOW solar power is or isn't economically feasable. It ISN'T feasable for massive skyscrapers and high-power demand buildings (yet), but it is very feasable for single or even multiple family residences. Since there's a massive amount of residences in the world, because people have to live somewhere, solar power is economically feasable.

Solar power is awesome in specific use cases. Remote locations, offloading certain power demands on a use case basis (I really like the idea of using solar power for charging car batteries during the day and heating pools and offloading energy from AC), but in densely populated areas, I don't see solar energy as the best solution. It could still offset power needs, but it won't be the primary energy source. The limitations of not being able to generate during night hours (even if they are off-peak), the battery technologies today to try to offset the half-day production limitation are impractical, the transmission lines to run the power from really sunny areas to rather dim areas need to get built first and I don't know if that investment is really worth it at this point. I personally like LFTRs as our solution.

Yes and no... The price for installing solar is still absurdly high. It is only recommended for families that use a large amount of energy and even then it only pays off in about 20 or so years. The currently available solar panels take about 80% of the energy they produce to create them in the first place. They have an average lifespan of 25-30 years (any company that tells you other wise is actually tweaking their "average" in order to make the sale) and after that the material is unusable and labeled as "dead waste".

Solar power is no where even remotely close to being able to replace power supplies in the US. Yes, it could become just that given time and research... but if that same time and research would be given towards nuclear power instead it would be vastly more efficient and safe. Hell, who knows how close we might have already been to making a fusion reactor.

Source: I install and help sell solar arrays. The company I work for believes in its workers being actually informed about the product we sell.

I live in Belgium. A mix of subsidies and allot of concurrence on the market (I don't think there's too much of that in this niche in America) has made it feasible. The installing costs are close to nothing. The 80% of the energy they produce to create is a myth btw. We got em on our roof since last week.

The big problem over in America is the lack of concurrence i think. Here and especially in Germany solar/wind power factories have popped out of the ground since the government started subsidizing it. Before the crisis it was almost free with the subsidizing, even more so for isolation (some actually cheated a bit and earned from putting isolation). Ofcourse they dimmed down on that alot but its still a good option also due to the cost reduction from the exes power you put back on the net

...to pay for a $9k system (panels + installation + breaker box + wiring in st. louis) in 10 years you'd have to be saving $75/month. ~$110 is about what I pay for power now for my house currently and there is no way it's going to supplement half the power usage at my home (estimate is between 10-20% based on weather and season).

There is no way your ROI is accurate, do you have a source? My personal ROI was at 30+ years with the panels lasting 20.

EDIT: I'd like to point out that there are MUCH better locations for solar than st. louis, and some sites (after doing some research) say ~10 years ROI, I'd like to see some actual numbers instead of best conditions guessing though.

AZ resident. 10 years is about par here. These companies that you can buy the system from and pay your utility bill while you pay off the system (SolarCity, etc.) often set-up for a 10 year payoff or less.

I don't have any hard sources as I didn't think you were really being serious there but don't forget to take into account things such as increase in home value (roughly 15x the annual value saved), inflation of energy prices at around 5% a year over the duration of the ROI period, and also federal incentives.

In you're case if you're shaving say 20% off your $110 bill that's $22/month you're saving or $264 annually. This translates to a home value increase of nearly $4000. Due to inflation of energy prices, by the end of 10-12 years you can be saving around $400 annually, which translates to a property increase of now $6000 instead of $4000. That's 2/3 of your cost right there. Granted, it's in the form of equity and not cash in your pocket, but it still counts. Now factor in the actual energy bill savings on your monthly bill and I'd say you can be well under a 30 year payback period not even including any government rebates.

That's a great point that I failed to consider as well. The savings would be slightly lower in the winter but I'm sure the spring/fall would make up for that. From my personal estimate, I figure my ROI to be ~16 years (mostly because of how cheap electricity is around here).

I wasn't being serious with my first response, but it got me looking around on the internet, then clicking sources, then I just kept going. Sorry if it came off as doubting you, I realized how dated my information was and am trying to fix it.

I think other concerns with your comment have been addressed by other folks, but I'd like to say that there's nothing inherently wrong with subsidies in general.

Subsidies and certain types of taxes are a way of adding real dollar value to something that the market alone does not value. So the energy market does not put a price on carbon pollution (or at least not a complete price.) When you buy energy, you are not paying for the costs that producing that energy puts on the rest of the world in terms of pollution.

Governments can try to correct this by adding a tax on carbon. But taxes are unpopular, so they do the inverse: subsidize clean energy. This is essentially saying, renewable energy has benefits that aren't reflected in the price you pay.

I think there's a misunderstanding that subsidies are an "unnatural" distortion of the real value of things. But the truth is that for many goods, the market alone cannot determine the "real" value of things. Subsidies and taxes are a way of trying to make prices reflect the full impact of a good.

If solar power becomes prevalent enough, solar rights will eventually become a thing. For example, you can own the mineral rights to land, which means only you can mine it. Solar rights would mean only you could set up solar panels on that land. It would also mean that someone else couldn't set up a building that was blocking all your sun without paying you or reaching some sort of an agreement.

I don't see what is wrong with solar rights. There has to be some way of dealing with disagreements about distributing the solar energy associated with a parcel of land.

The mechanisms to do this already exists. Farmers, for instance, lease land out to wind tower builders. The difference with solar power is that it takes up a much larger physical footprint then wind, so the amount of land being leased would be greater.

If solar power becomes prevalent enough, solar rights will eventually become a thing.

I'm not sure exactly how that would be implemented but sadly I suspect there is some truth in that statement. When solar power equipment costs and conversion efficiency reaches the point where it becomes as accessible to home owners as all other consumer electronics there will be an increase in laws and regulations meant to protect corporate revenue streams.

In some locations home owners are already limited to offsetting their power usage from the grid but are not allowed to sell their excess power on the grid for a profit. I can see future laws similar to water rights where the roof on your own property becomes prime real estate owned by the local power company.

I'd suggest installing a solar hot-water heater on your house. It's one of the more cost-effective ways to take advantage solar energy.

Oh, also, in my area there is a company going around that will install solar panels on your house for free. The catch is that you end up paying them a monthly bill. They advertise that it's works out to less then your current power bill. I don't know of anyone who has one of these setups, but it sounds like a cool idea.

The main issue with solar energy right now is that the very inefficient ways of doing it are the most cost-effective. Alternatively, you can get very good CPV technology and run your bill through the roof. I'm personally a big fan of CST as long as there is adequate space to build the plant, such as a desert in Southern California or Arizona.

People often comment on the inefficiency of solar energy (like I just did), with regard to efficiency = electrical energy out / sun energy in. Personally, I feel that this is a bit of a misleading thing to put so much emphasis on. When we're consuming a limited resource, such as coal, it's very important to be efficient. However, the sun is free energy. We're not going to run out of sun (or the earth won't be here when we do). The main issue for solar energy, in my opinion, is space and cost efficiency. And then, if you're building the plant in the desert, it's really only cost, which brings us back full-circle to the point that the worst technologies are the only cost-effective ones right now. Solar energy will get much, much better when we find ways to drop the cost of the vastly superior technologies.

I also see that this is in r/funny, and this comment was not very funny.

(Qualifications to make these statemens: MS in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Energy Systems, strong understanding of concentrated solar thermal, fundamental understanding of concentrated photovoltaics.)

Works for me. Chucked $10k at solar panel installation 2 years ago (way cheaper now) and haven't paid a power bill since, saving more than $2k pa in bills and making that money back in production - I get .47c for every kw I produce and don't use (I'm in Australia and live alone, so nyar!) If my panels last the ten odd years they're supposed to at maximum capacity they'll have paid themselves off in 4 years. After that I will (hopefully) earn another $12k. Regardless of profit, for normal households it is totally feasible! Oh, and the environment and stuff.

People mention that solar power isn't currently feasible and it has nothing to do with oil barons, and that's pretty much correct.

But, if we were to invest more resources into developing cheap efficient solar panels, it DOES have POTENTIAL to become feasible in the near future. (By "cheap" i mean using easily obtainable materials, money doesn't really come into it besides the man hours to obtain and build the panels)

Solar power is nearly at cost parity with fossil fuel generated power (source). If the government provides any incentives for installing solar cells in your area, it may already be at cost parity. If not, it is expected to be within the next 5 years.

There are many reasons for this, regarding changes over the last few decades.

1) Decline of silicon cost (aside from a recent bump, as you'll see in the above source).

2) More efficient manufacturing of cells.

3) Increase of optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency.

4) Rising cost of fossil fuels.

5) If the solar cells are installed at your home, there are obviously no distribution or transmission fees.

5) Often municipalities have programs in place allowing you to "sell" excess electricity back to the grid. (see an example here).

Efficiency

The upper limit of solar cell efficiency (known as the Shockley-Queisser limit) is 33.7%. This is with a 1.1 eV single-junction solar cell (silicon is very near this) and without any concentration of sunlight. Under maximum concentration, the upper limit is 41%.

Here is a chart showing the best research-cell efficiencies. If we're talking about conventional, commercial solar cell efficiencies (thick, monocrystalline silicon), the efficiency typically ranges from 18 to 24% (source).

Surpassing the Upper Efficiency Limit

There are some ways of surpassing the Shockley-Queisser limit. You can read some here. One that I find very interesting, which is actually the subject of my current research (I am an Engineering Physicist) is Thermophotovoltaics.

In TPV systems, you concentrate sunlight onto a emitter, which is then heated by the sunlight, and in turn emits onto your photovoltaic cell to be converted to electricity. It may seem unintuitive that a two-step process could be more efficient, but here's how: The emitter is nano-engineered so that its emission is matched to the absorption of your photovoltaic cell. This greatly enhances efficiency.

In a typical solar cell, much of the sunlight is wasted because it is either below the bandgap, or far above it. TPV systems are recently demonstrating very high efficiencies in simulations, and there are a few commercialproducts as well.

Another really cool thing about TPV is that they're very versatile; you could heat the emitter using sunlight (and surpass the SQ limit, as explained), industrial waste heat, nuclear reactions, or combustion sources.

It runs on the same principle as you can't just dam a river/stream flowing through your property. You're preventing the the flow of a natural resource and denying it to others.

That being said the places that block rain water collection it is usually not in abundance where areas like those near the Chesapeake promote rain collection as part of run off control. As it otherwise runs to the bay overwhelming it and causing flooding.

Depends on your local laws. It might not be legal at all. Sometimes it only coves a system where you maximize collection.

If you do get a rain barrel, please keep it sealed and check/treat for mosquito larva. The town I grew up in you were not allowed rain barrels cause of a no open standing water law or the town would get overwhelmed by the blood suckers.

Some idiots have claimed and are selling land on the moon, and a few even bigger idiots have purchased it, but governments have agreed ("Outer Space Treaty") that (at least for now) no-one may lay claim to extraterrestrial objects. Space is the province of all mankind, it says. A lofty ideal which I'm sure we'll do a 180-degree spin on once it becomes actually feasible for states to mine asteroids and other planetary bodies for resources.

I think we should all print out solar usage bills and mail them to her along with lots of change. I would say an average monthly charge for sun usage should be about 37 cents depending on your individual usage of course. Redditors will be more like 9 cents a month.

They could seize control of the materials that are needed to make solar panels, windmills, etc.

One of my favorite things in the whole world is the solar towers in Spain that use mirrors to focus sunlight to the top of the tower, and then run a generator off the heat. I think this is how they work anyway. Seems really simple and doesn't seem to require as much fancy material as solar panels.

unfortunately you just don't get as much power per area as you would with traditional solar. On a cool side note though, they found that water condensing on the bottom of the towers was allowing plants to grow in areas which were previously barren.

It is not consumed in the process of generating electricity. The coal, oil, gas, uranium, etc. are consumed in the power generation process and therefore require a continuous revenue stream to maintain the power supply.

Once your PV generator is installed the fuel source is free for the life of the generator. The PV system, and other renewable power generation methods, break a longtime revenue stream that will be ardently protected by those who profit from that revenue stream.

This exact comic has been pinned up in my grandparents house for as long as I can remember along with a dried salamander and some other odds ans ends. It's still there even though both of them are now gone.

To be fair, in some parts of the world, solar power is feasible for some things - in Turkey, for example, a lot of towns have solar-powered heating, which can work fairly well for fairly low prices, especially in sunnier parts of the world.

I work for a very large Natural Gas Company in less then 1 year we went from producing 0KWh to 27MWh and close to 200 solar roof customers, myself being one of them. We are working on our 5th solar farm. We are listening.

"We own the large fields of solar arrays necessary to inefficiently harvest the power from sunlight"

The idea that solar is going to be some giant democratizer is pretty funny. Yeah it's possible to slap enough solar panels on your roof to power your house, but it's not cheap, it's not efficient, and it's not going to change any time soon.

Of course solar power is feasible. There just isn't money to pay for the massive investment it would take to actually make solar power have any significant effect or the research to utilize it better. Well, there is money, but it sure as hell isn't going to be created used for bailing ourselves out of the coming energy crisis.